Washington, D.C., June 12, 2001 –
During the spring and summer of 1969, U.S. government officials
watched the ideological and political split between the Soviet Union and
the People's Republic of China escalate into fighting on Sino-Soviet borders.
Some U.S. officials wondered whether the clashes would escalate; some even
speculated that the Soviet Union might launch attacks on Chinese nuclear
weapons facilities. This electronic briefing book of declassified U.S.
government documents captures the apprehensions on the U.S. side as well
as on the part of the Chinese and the Russians, with Moscow worried about
China's nuclear potential and Beijing worried about a Soviet attack. The
briefing book includes some of the most significant sources cited in an
article in the current issue of Cold
War History, "Sino-American Relations, 1969: Sino-Soviet Border Conflict
and Steps Toward Rapprochement," by William Burr, a senior analyst
at the National Security Archive. Drawing on archival records and material
released through the Freedom
of Information Act, the article reviews the Nixon administration's
early steps toward a new relationship with the People's Republic of China
and the impact of Sino-Soviet tensions on the moves toward rapprochement
taken by both Beijing and Washington.

The documents presented here highlight
Washington's perceptions of the border tensions that escalated during March
1969 and the internal U.S. government discussions of the possibility of
a wider Sino-Soviet war. The material also elucidates the Soviet Union's
use of covert military threats to coerce Beijing into entering diplomatic
negotiations over the disputed borders. A State Department memorandum of
conversation, published here for the first time, recounts one of
the more extraordinary moments in Cold War history--a KGB officer's query
about the U.S. reaction to a hypothetical Soviet attack on Chinese nuclear
weapons facilities. Also included is a recently declassified report warning
of the danger of a Soviet attack on China, written for Henry Kissinger
by the influential China watcher Allen S. Whiting.

Archival documents also illustrate secret White
House initiatives during the summer and fall of 1969 to turn a page in
Sino-American relations. Convinced that Sino-Soviet tensions provided
a basis for rapprochement but also determined to minimize the State Department's
role, Nixon and Kissinger tried to open secret communications with China
through Pakistan and Romania. Other documents show how State Department
officials tried to assert a role in policymaking on rapprochement and,
before they were cut out altogether, made important contributions to White
House efforts to signal a friendly interest in communications with China.

This briefing book also includes some interesting
CIA Directorate of Intelligence material released through the Archive's
FOIA requests. Top-secret "Weekly Reviews", published every Friday
at noon, helped keep officials "with a need to know" apprised of current
events, such as the Sino-Soviet border clashes. A reference in a report
on Chinese diplomacy (document 28) to a secret directive
from Zhou En-lai suggest that U.S. intelligence, perhaps the Hong Kong
"China watchers", could acquire significant information on Chinese policymaking
from refugees and other contacts.

On 2 March 1969, the Sino-Soviet border dispute took an exceptionally
violent turn when Chinese forces fired on Soviet border troops patrolling
Zhenbao (Damanski), an island on the Ussuri River; some 50 Soviet soldiers
were killed.2 Although this early State Department
report is agnostic as to who sparked the fighting, apparently the Chinese
initiated the clash in response to earlier Soviet provocations along the
border. State Department analysts correctly opined that neither Beijing
nor Moscow sought major conflict.

Source: CIA Freedom
of Information release to National Security Archive

An early report from CIA's intelligence directorate accurately
concluded that Beijing "triggered" the 2 March incident.3
Another bloody exchange took place on 15 March when the Soviets deployed
forces for retaliatory action; CIA analysts saw that battle as a "Chinese
effort to contest [the Soviet] presence."

CIA's "Weekly Review" appeared in two editions:
one was classified "Secret"'; the other was highly classified--"Top Secret
Umbra"--the code word then assigned to communications intelligence. Interestingly,
the "warning" on the document notified readers that they could not "take
action" on comint--for example, use it for diplomatic or military advantage--without
the permission of the Director of Central Intelligence.

Source: CIA Freedom
of Information release to National Security Archive

This CIA report highlights some of the problems that complicated
Moscow's efforts to encourage negotiations with Beijing over disputed borders.
Although the Soviets wanted to enter into border negotiations with the
PRC, they refused to accede to Beijing's demands that Moscow acknowledge
that the nineteenth century border agreements were "unequal treaties" akin
to those forced on China by Western imperialism. Until the Soviets changed
their policy (or the Chinese dropped this demand), Beijing would only agree
to participate in comparatively low-level river navigation talks.

Partly based on information from sources in Hong Kong as well
as a NCNA [New China News Agency] article, this report analyzed the anti-Soviet
campaign then mobilizing in China. INR's China watchers suspected that
Chinese authorities promoted the campaign to "coalesce internal unity"
and strengthen the regime, but they also believed that it reflected a "genuine
fear of [Soviet] attack." To that extent, Beijing designed the domestic
mobilization--the manifestation of "national consciousness of the Soviet
danger"--to have a deterrent effect on the Kremlin's decisionmaking. Significantly,
the NCNA piece suggested some concern about Soviet nuclear-armed missiles
on the border while INR cited a nuclear threat made during an unofficial
Soviet radio broadcast during March 1969.

U.S. State Department memorandum of conversation, "Comments
of Soviet Embassy Officer on China and Vietnam," 13 June 1969, Secret

Source: National Archives,
SN 67-69, Pol Chicom-US

This document records a conversation between Soviet diplomat
Yuri Linkov and John H. Holdridge, Director of Office of Research and Analysis
for East Asia and Pacific at INR, although he was about to join Kissinger's
White House staff. More incidents of border fighting had broken out and
the discussion gave Holdridge an opportunity to express concern that the
conflict could escalate, especially if "some junior lieutenant [made] a
wrong decision." Tacitly warning the Soviets to avoid escalatory measures,
Holdridge referred to the unforeseen dangers of full-scale war: it could
"extend into other areas of the world and indeed threaten a large proportion
of the world's population."

U.S. State Department, Bureau of Intelligence and Research:
Intelligence Note, "Peking's Tactics and Intentions Along the Sino-Soviet
Border," 13 June 1969, Secret/No Foreign Dissem/Controlled Dissem

Source: National Archives,
SN 67-69, Pol 32-1 Chicom-USSR

Possibly written by John Holdridge, this report helps explain
why he worried about the risks of escalation. Treating Beijing as the "provocateur"
in the border conflict, INR analysts argued that Chinese "tactics make
sense as an attempt to deter a Soviet attack, using traditional Chinese
methods." The problem was that if the Soviets remained obdurate and the
Chinese met obduracy with more provocations, there was an "increased chance
of escalation into wider conflict."

U.S. State Department, Bureau of East Asian and Pacific
Affairs, Office of Asian Communist Affairs, "Implications of Sino-Soviet
Developments: Meeting of June 21," 23 June 1969, Secret

Source: National Archives,
SN 67-69, Pol 32-1 Chicom-USSR

This document reports on a discussion of the border clashes
by the State Department's China and Soviet specialists headed by Assistant
Secretary for Far Eastern and Pacific Affairs Marshall Green. The participants
agreed that the border conflict was "serious" and that "suspicion of US
collusion with the other" increased "nervousness" on both sides. Although
the analysts believed that neither side wanted the conflict to escalate,
they recognized that there "seems to be no common ground for agreement."
The Soviet watchers considered the possibility that Moscow might launch
a "surgical strike against Chinese nuclear installations" but suggested
that it was a less than likely option because military action could not
"permanently remove the Chinese military threat." Less unlikely was a "punitive"
strike along the border by the Soviets.

During late July and early August 1969, President Nixon made
his first trip to Asia, with a trip to Romania on his way home, during
which he intensified his efforts to communicate to Beijing his interest
in a new relationship. Most significantly, during a meeting with
Pakistan's prime minister Yahya Khan, Nixon asked Khan to send a friendly
message to China on his behalf.5National security
assistant Henry Kissinger accompanied Nixon and selectively briefed State
Department officials about some of the talks with Pakistani officials.
This cable, originally sent from Pakistan to the State Department, recounts
Kissinger's talk with Air Marshall Nur Khan. Khan had recently met with
Chinese Premier Zhou En-lai and passed on to Kissinger what he learned
of Zhou's apprehensions about Soviet intentions. Reportedly, Zhou
was ready to make some concessions to the Soviets about border claims6,
but he worried about the possibility of a Soviet "preemptive attack." If
Moscow struck, Zhou claimed, Beijing was ready to "respond in a war that
would 'know no boundaries.'"

A few days after one of the most violent border incidents on
13 August (see document 11, below), Allen S. Whiting
met with Henry Kissinger at the Western White House and briefed him on
Chinese policy and the dangers of Sino-Soviet conflict. Whiting, a leading
China scholar, had worked successively at INR and the U.S. Consulate in
Hong Kong during the 1960s and then joined the University of Michigan's
faculty. He also worked as a consultant for the RAND Corporation in Santa
Monica, CA, where he was based during the summer of 1969. Using highly
classified intelligence information that he had collected during consultations
in Washington earlier in August, Whiting used the briefing to convey his
foreboding that massive Soviet deployments on the Sino-Soviet border spelled
early offensive action against the PRC, such as an attack against nuclear
facilities, possible escalation of the conflict, and even nuclear weapons
use. Besides suggesting steps to deter wider conflict and to reassure the
Chinese that Washington was not colluding with Moscow, Whiting argued that
the Sino-Soviet crisis provided an opening for a U.S. approach to Beijing:
China needed a relationship with Washington to balance off the Soviets.
Apparently unaware of the intelligence information on Soviet military activity
near the Chinese border, Kissinger asked for a written report that he could
show to Nixon; Whiting produced it after staying up all night. Whiting's
briefing significantly influenced Kissinger's thinking about rapprochement
with China.7 It also inspired
highly secret National Security Council planning on possible U.S. steps
in the event of Sino-Soviet war.8

A few days after the Kissinger-Whiting meeting, the Soviets
directly probed for U.S. reactions to a strike on Chinese nuclear facilities.
During the early 1960s, the United States had probed Soviet interest in
possible joint action against China's incipient nuclear capabilities but
Moscow would go no further in pressuring China than signing the Limited
Test Ban Treaty of 1963.9
Six years later, the tables turned. Boris Davydov, a KGB officer with diplomatic
cover, surprised INR Vietnam expert William Stearman by asking how the
United States would react if the Soviets solved one nuclear proliferation
problem: by attacking Chinese nuclear weapons facilities. The fact that
this extraordinary meeting took place has been disclosed before, but Stearman's
"memcon" has never been published.10
Soviet archives and perhaps the memories of former Soviet officials may
someday disclose whether Davydov's approach was part of a campaign to intimidate
the Chinese or an effort to test U.S. reactions to real contingency plans
(or both).

Davydov's query caused some consternation at the State Department
and a few days later a cable went out (drafted by Stearman) asking a number
of U.S. embassies to keep their ears open for similar queries from Soviet
officials. Stearman prefaced his message with an excerpt from National
Intelligence Estimate on Sino-Soviet relations; intelligence community
analysts opined that there "is at least some chance" that Moscow "may be
preparing to take action" to prevent Chinese nuclear forces from threatening
the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, the analysts suggested that the likelihood
was not high that such a scenario could unfold because the Soviets, like
the Chinese, wanted to avoid a "full-scale war."

State Department cable 143579 to U.S. Mission to NATO,
25 August 1969, Secret, Limdis

Source: National Archives,
SN 67-69, Pol Chicom-USSR

Prompted by concern over a particularly bloody clash at the
Xinjiang province border on 13 August, political advisers (POLADs) to the
various national delegations at NATO headquarters in Brussels prepared
to discuss Sino-Soviet developments. As background for the discussion,
INR prepared background information for the U.S. POLAD, Gerald B. Helman.
INR considered the possibility of a Soviet strike against Chinese nuclear
facilities but saw many reasons why the Kremlin would conclude that such
an attack was unwise.

Besides Zhou's worried comments about a Soviet attack, U.S.
China watchers became aware of other indications of Chinese apprehension
about Moscow's intentions. At the same time, by the late summer of 1969,
Beijing was beginning to send out "feelers" expressing interest in improved
relations with Washington. In this cable, a staffer at State's Asian Communist
Affairs (ACA) desk commented on a CAS (Controlled American Source or CIA)
report that the State Department was "struck by the frequency with which
these feelers [were] accompanied by new and more urgent expressions of
concern that Soviets may be about to take further military action against
China."

William Hyland, the author of this paper, was a Soviet analyst
at CIA's Directorate of Intelligence before he was recruited for Kissinger's
NSC staff. In this memorandum, Hyland critiqued an interagency study on
Sino-Soviet relations that Kissinger has requested in National Security
Study Memorandum (NSSM) 63. In the course of the analysis, which Kissinger
characterized as "1st rate," Hyland acknowledged that a limited Sino-Soviet
war was "by no means a disaster for the US." For example, implying that
a war would involve Soviet strikes to destroy Chinese nuclear facilities,
Hyland observed that it might be a "solution" to the China nuclear problem.12

Memorandum from Miriam Camps, State Department Planning
and Coordination Staff, to Under Secretary of State Elliot Richardson,
"NSSM 63 - Meeting with Consultants," 29 August 1969, Secret

Source: FOIA Release
to National Security Archive

State Department academic consultants on China and the Soviet
Union were less sanguine than Hyland about the benefits of a Sino-Soviet
war. During a discussion of the draft response to NSSM 63, the consultants
argued that a Soviet attack could inflame Chinese nationalism and strengthen
Mao's standing; moreover, a "non-nuclear Soviet strike would have a vast
destabilizing effect" in Asia and Europe. Like Whiting, the consultants
worried that Beijing might believe that the United States was tacitly colluding
with the Soviet Union against China, the consultants recommended that Washington
"avoid any whiff of collusion" with Moscow, a point that Under Secretary
of State Elliott Richardson would include in a speech a few days later
to the American Political Science Association.13

The danger of the border situation and the hope of some Soviet
military officers that Washington would collude with Moscow against Beijing
is apparent in this summary of a conversation with Major General Sergei
Krakhmalov, the Soviet military attache in Tehran. Showing no compunction
about nuclear weapons use, the general argued that Moscow "would not hesitate
to use nuclear weapons against the Chinese if they attacked with major
forces."

U.S. Embassy Moscow cable 4709 to State Department, "Question
of Soviet Belligerent Moves Against China," 4 September 1969, Secret, Limdis

Source: National Archives,
SN 67-69, Pol 32-1 Chicom-USSR

Like INR's Soviet analysts, observers at the U.S. embassy in
Moscow saw "many rules of reason" why the Kremlin was unlikely to launch
a premeditated attack on China. Nevertheless, the Soviets saw the
"Maoists" as a "universal threat" and if border fighting escalated, embassy
analysts did not rule out the possibility that Moscow would take punishing
military actions to teach Beijing an "exemplary lesson."

U.S. Mission to the United Nations cable 2888 to State
Department, "Soviet-Chinese Relations," 5 September 1969, Secret,
Exdis

Source: National Archives,
SN 67-69, Pol Chicom-USSR

In a conversation with a U.S. diplomat Michael Newlin, Arkady
Shevchenko, a Soviet official at the United Nations, showed hawkishness
on the border dispute: the Chinese were wrong to think that Moscow would
"compromise" or to think that the Kremlin would not "use larger-than-tactical
nuclear weapons."14 During
the early 1970s, Shevchenko switched sides and began to provide information
to the CIA. He defected in 1978 and later published a controversial memoir
of his years in the Soviet system, Breaking with Moscow.

Memorandum for the President from Secretary of State William
Rogers, "The Possibility of a Soviet Strike Against Chinese Nuclear Facilities,"
10 September 1969, Secret

Source: National Archives,
SN 67-69, Def 12 Chicom

On 10 September, Secretary of State Rogers presented Nixon
with the memcon for the Davydov-Stearman meeting as well with more details
on Soviet threats against China and the INR's analysis of Davydov's probe
for U.S. reactions to Soviet military action. Downplaying the significance
of Davydov's query, the Department saw it as a "curiosity" and estimated
a less than "fifty-fifty" chance that the Soviets would attack Beijing's
nuclear facilities.

Soviet soundings also raised questions among National Security
Council staffers John Holdridge and Helmut Sonnenfeldt who worried that
the Kremlin might conclude that Washington would tacitly accept an attack
on the PRC. A marginal note on this document by presidential assistant
Henry Kissinger showed his disagreement with the State Department's assessment
that Davydov's probe was a curiosity. Tacitly showing the influence of
Whiting's thinking, Kissinger wrote: "I disagree with State analysis. Soviets
would not ask such questions lightly."

U.S. State Department, Bureau of Intelligence and Research:
Intelligence Note, "Communist China: War Fears and Domestic Politics,"
18 September 1969, Secret, No Foreign Dissem

Source: National Archives,
SN 67-69, Pol Chicom

The Chinese leadership found tensions with Moscow worrisome
but that problem coincided with worries about lack of control over labor
and students as well as unrest and criminal activity throughout the country.
To accelerate preparations for border war and to facilitate stricter internal
controls, Mao signed off on a Central Committee directive on 28 August.
The directive was widely distributed and U.S. authorities soon got wind
of it, probably from Chinese emigres or visitors to Hong Kong. The actual
directive has since been translated and published in The Bulletin of
the Cold War International History Project.15

State Department Memorandum of Conversation, "The President's
Meeting with Foreign Minister Schumann in New York," 19 September 1969,
Secret, Nodis16

Source: National Archives,
SN 67-69, Pol Fr-US

The Nixon White House included France in its efforts to communicate
with China through secret channels; no doubt this raised Nixon's interest
in French Foreign Minister Maurice Schumann's thinking about Sino-Soviet
tensions. Schumann discounted the possibility of a Soviet preemptive strike
because of the danger of "major conflict." Instead, he believed that Moscow
was making threats to "scare China stiff" and thereby get Beijing to enter
into negotiations. Certainly, the meeting between Zhou and Soviet Prime
Minister Kosygin at Beijing airport a week later suggested that both sides
were seeking to avoid a crisis.16

U.S. State Department, Bureau of Intelligence and Research:
Intelligence Note, "War Between Russia and China: A Communist Nightmare,"
23 September 1969, Secret, No Foreign Dissem

Source: National Archives,
SN 67-69, Pol 32-1 Chicom-USSR

In his talk with Nixon, Schumann observed that Soviet communications
with the pro-Chinese Australian Communist Party indicated how far the Kremlin
was willing to go to let Beijing know that it "meant business." Apparently,
the Soviet message was ominous enough to prompt the Australians to send
a letter to other Communist parties warning them of the danger of Chinese-Russian
warfare. As INR experts noted, the border fighting raised serious dilemmas
for the world communist movement; both Russia and China were acting like
"traditional great powers" with their claims to be "the sole interpreter
and custodian of Marxism" becoming more and more disreputable. Indeed,
both Beijing and Moscow "may become the chief ideological target for a
growing number of communist parties."

Although the Kosygin-Zhou meeting suggested that the crisis
was passing, apparently Kissinger did not see it that way. In this belated
memo to Nixon on the Davydov probe, Kissinger showed that he was especially
apprehensive about Chinese perceptions of U.S.-Soviet collusion: that the
Soviets were "using us to generate an impression ... that we are being
consulted in secret." With that in mind, he asked Nixon to approve a request
to the State Department to prepare guidance to the field "deploring reports
of a Soviet plan to make a pre-emptive military strike against Communist
China." Nixon's initials may be seen on Kissinger's request but whether
it went forward to the State Department is unclear: the guidance may have
become unnecessary because Sino-Soviet talks would soon be under way and
the chances of a confrontation had lessened considerably.

Memorandum from Assistant Secretary for East Asian and
Pacific Affairs Marshall Green to Under Secretary of State Elliot Richardson,
"Next Steps in China Policy," 6 October 1969, Secret/Nodis

Source: National Archives,
SN 67-69, Pol Chicom-US

Wanting to find ways to balance off their Soviet adversary,
the Chinese leadership was looking for ways to begin a dialogue with the
United States, just as Washington was interested in ties with Beijing to
strengthen its bargaining position with Moscow.18
As this memorandum by Marshall Green indicates, State Department officials
were looking for any and all signs that Beijing was taking a new tack in
its approach to Washington. Thus, Green found it especially important that
Zhou En-lai would tell the French Ambassador that he had noticed that Washington
had not tried to "worsen" Sino-Soviet tensions and would not find a Sino-Soviet
war to its advantage. In this context, Green proposed new initiatives,
such as withdrawing U.S. destroyers from the Taiwan Strait, trade and travel
measures, etc., which Nixon and Kissinger followed up as signals to elicit
a friendly Chinese response.

Within a few weeks after the Kosygin-Zhou meeting, the two
sides agreed to border negotiations at an ambassadorial level. In agreeing
to the talks, Beijing backed away from its demand that Moscow recognize
the old border agreements as "unequal treaties." As the authors of this
CIA report argued, this concession suggested that Beijing had "flinched"
under the pressure of Soviet military threats. The analysts did not expect
the talks to produce a settlement but they believed that both sides had
found it imperative to negotiate, even if only "agreeing to disagree,"
in order to head off a serious crisis.

In the fall of 1969, while Beijing and Moscow were starting
to negotiate, the Chinese and the Americans were starting to communicate,
in a highly secret fashion, their interest in a dialogue. Nixon and Kissinger
approved the State Department's proposal to withdraw the destroyer patrol
from the Taiwan Strait; on 10 October Kissinger aired the decision with
the Chinese via the Pakistani government. The message took some time to
reach the Chinese leadership but on 19 December Kissinger learned from
Pakistani ambassador Hilaly that a recent Chinese gesture--the release
of two Americans whose yacht had strayed into PRC waters--was a direct
response to the White House overture. The friendly Chinese response to
U.S. proposals to revive the stalled ambassadorial talks in Warsaw was
another sign of a new tack in PRC diplomacy, although both Kissinger and
Chinese policymakers would abandon the Warsaw channel as a vehicle of communication.
Although it would take months before Henry Kissinger made his secret trip
to Beijing, the Pakistani channel played a central role in expediting that
development.19

Central Intelligence Agency, Directorate of Intelligence,
Office of Current Intelligence, "Signs of Life in Chinese Foreign Policy,"
11 April 1970, Secret, No Foreign Dissem

Source: CIA FOIA release
to National Security Archive

The CIA's China watchers did not know of the Pakistani channel
so they could not take into account all of the "signs of life" in Chinese
diplomacy. Nevertheless, they were right to suggest that a "new ... period"
was underway and that anxiety about a "Soviet threat" had prompted the
"diplomatic offensive." Interestingly, the analysts reported that Zhou
Enlai had signed a secret directive ordering a "limited flexible approach"
toward Washington in order to put Moscow off balance. If the report on
Zhou's directive was accurate, perhaps this document will someday surface
in Chinese archives and appear in The Bulletin of the Cold War International
History Project.

Notes

1. Special controls were applied to this document because
it specifically referred to information acquired from Japanese security
services. "No foreign dissemination" (or "dissem") meant that the report
could not be shown to foreign government officials.

2. For a significant recent accounts based on Chinese
and Russian sources, see Yang Kuisong, "The Sino-Soviet Border Clash of
1969: From Zhenbao Island to Sino-American Rapprochement," Cold War
History 1/1 (2000), 21-52, and Viktor M. Gobarev, "Soviet Policy Toward
China: Developing Nuclear Weapons 1949-1969," The Journal of Slavic
Military Studies 12/4 (1999), 43-47. For further information
on the border conflict as well as a useful collection of East German documents,
see Christian Ostermann, ed., "East German Documents on the Border Conflict,"
Cold
War International History Project Bulletin 6-7 (1995/96), 186-193.

3. CIA's judgment was corroborated by Yang Kuisong,
who treats the 2 March incident as a "well planned [PRC] military attack."
See Yang (note 2 above), 25-28.

5. For important documentation on Pakistan's role as
a go-between in the Sino-American relationship, see F.S. Aijazuddin, From
a Head, Through a Head, To a Head: The Secret Channel Between the US and
China Through Pakistan (Oxford University Press, 2000).

6. By stating that China would accept the "thalweg border"
provided in the Sino-Russian border treaties, Zhou simply meant that Beijing
recognized the line following the deepest part of the river- bed as constituting
the border.

7. Marvin and Bernard Kalb, Kissinger (Boston:
Little Brown and Company, 1974),. 226-227. See also James Mann, About
Face: A History of America's Curious Relationship with China, From Nixon
to Clinton (New York: Knopf, 1999), 21. During a recent reunion
of Whiting's students and colleagues, Henry Kissinger acknowledged via
letter, the importance of the briefing at San Clemente.

8. See the account by former NSC staffer John Holdridge,
who was more skeptical of the dangers of a Soviet attack, Crossing the
Divide: An Insider's Account of Normalization of US-China Relations
(Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1197), 34-35.

9. See William Burr and Jeffrey Richelson, "Whether
'To Strangle the Baby in the Cradle': The United States and the Chinese
Nuclear Weapons Program, 1960-64," International Security 25/3 (Winter
2000/2001).

10. For earlier accounts of this meeting, see for example,
Raymond Garthoff (who attests to Davydov's KGB credentials), Detente
and Confrontation: American-Soviet Relations from Nixon to Reagan,
2nd edition (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1994), 237, and Patrick
Tyler, A Great Wall, Six Presidents and China: An Investigative History
(New York: PublicAffairs, 1999), 66-67.

11. "Limdis" or "Limited distribution," less restrictive
than "exdis," means distribution strictly limited to officials, offices,
and agencies with a need to know.

12. For the controversial thesis that the Nixon administration
was willing to accept a Soviet attack on China in order to secure Moscow's
active help on a Vietnam war settlement, see Tyler, A Great Wall,
62-63.

13. See Richardson's speech to the American Political
Science Association, "The Foreign Policy of the Nixon Administration: Its
Aims and Strategy," Department of State Bulletin 61/1578 (22 September
1969), 260.

14. In his memoir, Breaking with Moscow (New
York, 1985) at 165-66, Shevchenko portrays himself as substantially less
hawkish.

15. "The CCP Central Committee's Order for General
Mobilization in Border Provinces and Regions," 28 August 1969, in Chen
Jian and David Wilson, "'All Under the Heaven is Great Chaos': Beijing,
the Sino-Soviet Border Clashes, and the Turn Toward Sino-American Rapprochement,
1968-69," Bulletin of the Cold War International History Project
11 (Winter 1998), 168-69.

16. "Nodis" means "no distribution" without permission
of the State Department's Executive Secretary (or some other ranking official).

17. For documentation on the Kosygin-Zhou talk, see
Ostermann (note 2), and Chen-Wilson (note
12).